Two factors are in current play in the dash to the finishing line in the 2008 presidential race and both are favorable to Obama and unfavorable for McCain.

McCain and his campaign team frantically scramble, constantly changing strategy on the components to reach the magic number of 270 electoral votes and a victory on November 4.  

Last week, after abandoning heavy ground efforts in former battleground states Michigan and Wisconsin, CNN announced that McCain was shifting forces away from  crucial Colorado, which under virtually all perceived analyses the Republicans need to prevail.

Yesterday McCain held what some campaign observers called one of his best rallies in Denver.  All available polling evidence at this point, despite McCain's effort, shows Obama in front in Colorado.  Colorado's Democratic Senator Ken Salazar asserted yesterday that, while he expects the result to be close, that Obama's superior ground effort will prevail and that the Illinois senator is currently ahead.

On Tuesday, the very day that Barack Obama's campaign announced he would be taking a 36-hour respite from campaigning to visit his seriously ill grandmother in Hawaii, CNN  reported that John McCain's campaign was giving up on Colorado just one day after a blitz in the state by running mate Sarah Palin.

The flurry of activity in Colorado followed by a decision to concede the state is reminiscent of what happened recently in Wisconsin.  It was in Wisconsin that a man attending the rally sizzled with rage when he asked what America could do about turning the federal government over to "socialists" in a certain reference to a prospective Obama administration.

The correlative proposition one strategically ponders following the Colorado move is the curious McCain strategy to intensify efforts in Pennsylvania, a state carried by the Democrats not only by John Kerry in 2004 but extending back all the way to the last Republican victory in the Keystone State by George Bush the Elder in 1988.

It appears that the "wing and a prayer" strategy devolves heavily on Sarah Palin and her ability to generate enthusiastic crowds in rural areas.

In the Letters to the Editors of the New York Times October 3 following the Obama-McCain Nashville debate, quite a few responses showed disdain for McCain:

Alex Ulne from Tallahassee, Florida wrote:

"I saw on Tuesday night one candidate showing class and poise and knowledge of the issues, and one showing disdain and contempt for the candidate showing class and poise.

"I feel sad.  I really do.  I used to like and admire John McCain."

by Cody Lyon
    Until we as a nation begin to aggressively address the fundamental flaws that money in politics has grown into over the past few years, we are only going to continue to witness political pollution of an increasingly grand scale.

Hillary and Bill Clinton have been literally shell-shocked as first term senator from Illinois Barack Obama has virtually sewn up the Democratic presidential nomination, no matter how much spinning Clinton's forces attempt to generate to argue with that result.

Hillary Clinton began with a big war chest and significant name edge on Obama, whose biggest national moment was his brilliant speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention.  

So how did this major turnabout occur?  Apart from Obama's oft-mentioned gifted speaking style, which gives him a fresh and vibrant dynamism reflective of John F. Kennedy circa 1960, the big factor was having the correct message for the time.

Obama's major support has come from a group much akin to Howard Dean's supporters in 2000, frustrated citizens, in Obama's case among younger voters in the under-30 range, who believe that the political system is broken and that we need a fresh beginning.